Hip-Hop History

Hip-hop tells the stories of the multiethnic urban youth and the communities they live in, though the lives of inner-city African- Americans take center stage. Hip-hop is about inner-city and lower-class life. It’s about trying to live out the American dream from the bottom up. It’s about trying to make something out of nothing. Hip-hop is about the youth culture of New York City taking over the world. Hip-hop is about dance, art, expression, pain, love, racism, sexism, broken families, hard times, overcoming adversity, and the search for God. Anyone who looks at hip-hop and just sees rap music doesn’t truly understand the history and the current influence hip-hop has on the whole youth culture.

Bakari Kitwana, in the book The Hip-Hop Generation writes: “I have established the birth years 1965-1984 as the age group for the hip-hop generation. However, those at the end of the civil rights/black power generation were essentially the ones who gave birth to the hip-hop movement that came to define the hip-hop generation, even though they are not technically hip-hop generationers. Those folks, who were right at the cusp, were too young to be defined by civil rights/black power and too old to be deemed hip-hop generationers.”

I watched hip-hop evolve from underground house parties in the basements of my friends’ houses to the first Run DMC video on cable television to today’s rap millionaires like Sean “Puffy” Combs, Master P, Suge Knight, and Russell Simmons. These rich African-American men are more than just rappers; as a matter of fact Russell Simmons doesn’t even rap. Russell Simmons has been behind the scenes of hip-hop—developing it from rap artists and groups like L.L. Cool J. and Kurtis Blow to films like Krush Groove and Tougher Than Leather to clothing lines like Phat Farm. Russell Simmons, a true pioneer of the culture, opened the door so that others in the movement like Sean Combs could start his own Bad Boy record label and develop his own clothing line, Sean John.

These innovators are the architects of culture, starting from the streets of the city and now influencing suburban and even small rural towns. They took the hustle of the street and turned it into a Wall Street economy. As a youth worker, it doesn’t matter if you’re in a church or parachurch, city or suburb; it doesn’t matter if your kids are Latino, Asian, or Irish—hip-hop is influencing your situation. The kids you work with may not love hip-hop, but they’re being influenced by it. If your kids are wearing oversized jeans with the tops of their boxers showing, oversized athletic jerseys, tennis shoes like Air Force Ones, or long chains around their necks, this is hip-hop. White girls on a youth group bus braiding their hair in the style of an Ethiopian queen, that’s hip-hop. There are things around you that daily scream at you, “long live hip-hop!” It’s important if you want to understand the culture teens live in today, to understand hiphop and understand it as culture, not just a music form.

The Hip-Hop Influence

In the book Hip-hop America, Nelson George writes this about the culture of hip-hop and its influence:

“Now we know that rap music, and hip-hop style as a whole, has utterly broken through from its ghetto roots to assert a lasting influence on American clothing, magazine publishing, television, language, sexuality, and social policy as well as its obvious presence in records and movies…advertisers, magazines, MTV, fashion companies, beer and soft drink manufacturers, and multimedia conglomerates like Time-Warner have embraced hip-hop as a way to reach not just black young people, but all young people.”

A rap artist who goes by the name KRSONE (Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone) helps us understand hiphop as culture by presenting the elements and history of hip-hop in his book, Ruminations. To him, hip-hop connects to philosophy, religion, government, and corporate America. He presents hip-hop as a commentary from the ‘hood with urban artists serving as inner-city journalist who use their rap, dance, and graffiti to report what’s going on in the city and in the world at large. Sometimes the reporting comes across with the soft melody of Marvin Gaye asking, “What’s Going On” from the Motown era. Sometimes the reporting is done with the pride of James Brown’s “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud.” And there are other times when the reporting is done with the anger of the Isley Brothers’, “Fight The Power.” I mention these R&B artists because hip-hop is influenced in many ways by this genre of soul music. Nelson George even refers to hip-hop as “Post-Soul” culture. To a certain degree, I see this as the urban take on postmodernism, which is more commonly used in white cultural circles to describe what’s going on in the world around us. KRSONE describes hip-hop as culture this way:

“True hip-hop is a term that describes the independent collective consciousness of a specific group of inner-city people. Ever growing, it is commonly expressed through such elements as: Breakin’ (dance), Emceein’ (rap), Graffiti (aerosol art), Deejayin’, Beatboxin’, Street Fashion, Street Knowledge, and Street Entrepreneurialism. Discovered by Kool DJ Herc in the Bronx, New York around 1972, and established as a community of peace, love, unity, and having fun by Afrika Bambaataa through Zulu Nation in 1974, hip-hop is an independent and unique community, an empowering behavior, and an international culture.”

The American Heritage College Dictionary has given hip-hop the following definition: “The popular culture of big city and especially innercity youth, characterized by graffiti art, break dancing, and rap music—of or relating to this culture.”

 Hip-hop moves beyond music into other forms: D.J., the M.C., dance, visual art, fashion, language, and big business. It’s also culture because it encompasses the culture of African-Americans, Latinos, and Urban America. When I was in middle school and high school, hip-hop was more than just music for me—it was finally feeling like my voice was in the mainstream of

American culture. It really felt like the voice of urban youth culture, especially those of color, were finally in the mainstream.

Take into consideration that hip-hop evolved after formalized and legalized integration. Hip-hop evolved after a movement for civil rights, which had young people on the front lines. Not that hip-hop was the first to use the arts to speak to political, social, and spiritual issues, but it did so representing the underclass of urban America.

Hip-Hop as Ministry

I believe hip-hop culture can be used as a vehicle for ministry to young people. There are aspects of hip-hop culture, such as gangsta rap, about which it’s debatable whether they can be redeemed for godly purposes; but there are many ways in which hip-hop culture calls us to revisit how we present the truth of the gospel to young people today. That fact that hiphop encompasses dance, beats, and rhythm should help us rethink how we approach praise and worship. Rap and graffiti can assist us in exploring new ways of presenting the gospel creatively through spoken word, poetry, painting, and aerosol art. The fact that hip-hop as culture deals with the lives of underclass people groups should lead us to discussions on the approaches Jesus used in dealing with the poor, the hurting, and the outcasts of his day.

Even the controversial sides of hip-hop can force us to get real with young people on issues such as sex, violence, poverty, racism, and sexism. Hip-hop can be used to explore other cultures and ethnic groups and to get in better touch with your own. When one sees hip-hop as culture and not just rap music, new doors are opened for how we become learners, observers, and missionaries to those in the culture and those influenced by it. It allows us in contemporary culture to be as Paul was when he addressed the altars built to unknown gods and used them as vehicles to present the true God who can be known intimately through Christ Jesus.